Deakin Speaking - Barack Obamahttp://communities.deakin.edu.au/deakin-speaking/taxonomy/term/777/0
enRussia may yet offer US a Syrian lifelinehttp://communities.deakin.edu.au/deakin-speaking/node/535
<p>Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's sudden willingness to put its chemical weapons under international -- i.e. Russian -- supervision might allow the regime to avoid a US attack while at the same time preserving its advantage in Syria's civil war. Despite tough rhetoric from the United States, if an agreement can be reached on the modalities of safeguarding the chemical weapons, the US can avoid becoming embroiled in the Syrian conflict while still, more or less, saving face.</p>
<p>President Barack Obama's delineation of the "red line" that would trigger intervention if crossed trapped the US into acting in Syria. Not to do so would have been a serious blow to the US’ pre-eminent standing in global affairs.</p>
<p>But to strike without UN Security Council approval would have drawn international opprobrium and likely have escalated involvement by Russia and Iran. The logic of intervention, too, would be to step up from "degrading" the Assad regime’s capacity to use chemical weapons and probably damaging its air power to damaging the regime’s wider capacity, allowing greater prospects for regime change.</p>
<p>At this stage, the US is not backing down on its internal discussions about attacking Assad's regime. But its rhetoric should now be read primarily as keeping up pressure on Russia to finally act to help moderate the conflict. Having Russia involved in Syria would help prevent the US from being drawn into a no-win situation. Should the US intervene, it will create four problems that do not currently exist.</p>
<p>The first problem is that any hope for detente with Russia would collapse, raise the spectre of opposition on a range of other global issues the US is trying to manage, including China’s strategic manoeuvring, a nuclear armed Iran, and a mad and bad North Korea. It would also damage the opportunity to work with Russia on the mutual concern with the spread of international jihadist Islamism.</p>
<p>The second problem is that any US intervention in Syria would turn a number of its Middle Eastern friends into critics, based not on their strategic alliances but on the "great unbeliever" again imposing its will on Islamic land. One should not underestimate the offence to Muslims caused by non-Islamic military involvement in Islamic countries.</p>
<p>The third problem is that if the Assad regime were to fall, Syria’s patchwork of over a dozen ethnic groups would descend into an ethnic cleansing bloodbath. The conflict would also almost certainly spill over into Lebanon and further destabilise Iraq and perhaps Jordan and would pose a greater threat to Israel.</p>
<p>The fourth problem is that while few like the Assad regime, everyone but Saudi Arabia and Qatar are much more concerned about the likely jihadist Islamist alternative. Should Assad be toppled, the Syrian Islamic Front -- a coalition of radical Salafi jihadist organisations linked to al-Qaeda -- would very likely defeat the alternative anti-Assad Free Syrian Army.</p>
<p>This would create a combative Islamist state in the heart of the Middle East. The US and Russia would be equally aghast at this eventually.</p>
<p>At least with Russia now offering to "safeguard" Syria’s chemical weapons -0 if with conditions - the possibility they will fall into the hands of a combative Islamist state would be removed. And the US may be able to avoid again setting itself up as Islam’s "great Satan".</p>
<p>Assuming it can obtain sufficient guarantees, the US will likely accept Russia’s offer. More than punish Assad, the US wants to preserve its credibility while extricating itself from a situation it has never wanted to be in and that, on balance, it knows will only get worse.</p>
<p><a href="http://communities.deakin.edu.au/deakin-speaking/node/535" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://communities.deakin.edu.au/deakin-speaking/node/535#commentsEconomics and Public PolicyBarack ObamaBASHAR AL-ASSADCHEMICAL WEAPONSRussiaSyriaSYRIA UPRISINGUnited NationsWed, 11 Sep 2013 04:25:22 +0000Damien Kingsbury535 at http://communities.deakin.edu.au/deakin-speakingPause for thought on Syrian chemical attacks -- and reprisalshttp://communities.deakin.edu.au/deakin-speaking/node/531
<p>As the United States and its allies -- including Australia -- move closer to intervening in the Syrian civil war, more questions are emerging over the chemical weapons attack which is the pretext for that intervention. Challenging questions are being asked about the motive behind the attack, as well as the consequences of a response to it.</p>
<p>The US has been reluctant to intervene in the Syrian conflict, yet drawn a "red line" which, if crossed, would trigger an intervention. The question now being asked is why Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad would unnecessarily provoke the US into a response?</p>
<p>Assad knew that, once publicly committed, the US could not back down from its threat to intervene. For US President Barack Obama to make such a threat and then not carry it through would weaken its international status and prompt further possible tests of its strategic resolve.</p>
<p>The evidence, too, is that despite the huge cost in civilian lives, the Assad regime is at least holding its own in the civil war and has made recent gains. These gains have been largely due to logistical support from Russia, China and Iran, and the intervention of Hezbollah fighters from neighbouring Lebanon.</p>
<p>This, then, begs the questions of why it would resort to using chemical weapons when there is no pressing need to do so, and especially knowing it would engender an external military response?</p>
<p>The Assad regime being evil is a morally satisfying but intellectually bereft answer to this question that does not transcend reasonable -- and growing -- doubt. It is certain that chemical weapons have been used in Syria, but that is the extent of the facts.</p>
<p>It is possible that the order for Assad regime forces to use its chemical weapons did not come from Assad himself. A rogue commander could have used the weapons, for reasons that can only be guessed at.</p>
<p>But looking at who has most to gain from such an attack, suspicion falls less on the Assad regime and more on the faltering anti-Assad rebellion. External intervention could, at least initially, tip the balance of power in Syria’s civil war in favour of the anti-Assad forces.</p>
<p>The Assad regime's reluctance and delay in allowing in UN weapons inspectors has not helped allay suspicion that the chemical weapons attach was a deliberate act. However, had a local commander given the order, Assad would have been aware of the likely consequences and thus attempted to delay formal investigations in order to allow signs of the chemicals to dissipate.</p>
<p>Of the two main opposition groupings, the more secular (and Western-supported) Free Syrian Army has struggled and has the most to gain from external intervention. The Saudi and Qatar-backed and Al Qaeda-linked al Nusra Front and the Syrian Islamic Front, though, would also benefit from external intervention. If intervention helped topple the Assad regime, it would ease the way towards them establishing an Islamist state.</p>
<p>While there is no evidence that either of these two somewhat disparate groupings are responsible for the chemical attack, one is clearly desperate and the other has, during the civil war, demonstrated its own lack of moral compunction. The hard evidence, then, beyond the simple fact of an attack, remains ambiguous.</p>
<p>Apart from the formal legality of a direct external intervention, careful consideration is being given to how much evidence will be needed to launch a US-led attack. There appears little ulterior reason for the US to want to intervene in the Syrian civil war, given that it is only likely to further stir up the hornets’ nest.</p>
<p>The US is being drawn into the Syrian civil war in a seemingly mechanistic way. Yet there remains no hard evidence as to who was the perpetrator of the chemical attack. This level of uncertainty has echoes similar to that of Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction", and the continuing disaster that remains what is left of the Iraqi state.</p>
<p><a href="http://communities.deakin.edu.au/deakin-speaking/node/531" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://communities.deakin.edu.au/deakin-speaking/node/531#commentsEconomics and Public PolicyBarack ObamaBASHAR AL-ASSADCHEMICAL ATTACKFOREIGN AFFAIRSLEBANONRussiaSyriaUnited NationsUnited StatesThu, 29 Aug 2013 03:37:11 +0000Damien Kingsbury531 at http://communities.deakin.edu.au/deakin-speakingObama makes chemical case in Syria, but hesitating on interventionhttp://communities.deakin.edu.au/deakin-speaking/node/478
<p>US President Barack Obama has moved a step closer towards direct intervention in Syria with his statement that there is now evidence that chemical weapons have been used in Syria's civil war. Obama has previously said the use of chemical weapons would be a "red line" that, if crossed, would trigger US intervention.</p>
<p>However, Obama has said it is not yet absolutely clear who was responsible for the use of the chemical weapons, and that it is critical to clarify this point so as to ensure international support for US intervention. His caution reflects growing concern not just over Syria's mounting death toll but international opposition to intervention as well as the inexorable drawing in to the conflict of outside forces, in particular Lebanon’s heavily armed Shiite militia Hezbollah.</p>
<p>Both the Bashar al-Assad government and the Syrian opposition claim chemical weapons have been used in the conflict, as recently as last Sunday. This supports earlier Israeli claims chemical weapons were being used in the Syrian conflict. There has been a high level of reluctance to take such claims on face value, however, given the disrepute of similar claims that rationalised the start of the Iraq War. Even if it can be established who has used chemical weapons -- thought to be the nerve gas Sarin -- it is not yet clear what form intervention might take, much less the shape of international reactions to such an intervention.</p>
<p>With the US public weary over the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, it is unlikely that the US would commit ground troops to Syria. A belligerent response from Syrian ally Russia, and to a lesser extent Iran, are also factors against a ground intervention.</p>
<p>However, a bombing campaign and related air cover, as in Libya in 2011 and in Yugoslavia in 1999, have been shown to be effective in either changing the course of a ground war or compelling a government into submission. With the Assad regime only slowly losing ground in its now two-year-old civil war, such an intervention would be likely to tip the outcome against his government forces.</p>
<p>One factor complicating of any hastening of the fall of the Assad regime is that Syrian opposition forces are now deeply divided. The Free Syrian Army is supported by the US and its European allies, and the explicitly al-Qaeda-affiliated Al Nusra Front is supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Although it wants the Assad regime to go, the US and its allies are deeply opposed to an Al Nusra takeover of Syria. A civil war between Al Nusra and the FSA is also seen as increasingly likely following the fall of the Assad regime.</p>
<p>On-ground intervention by Hezbollah, which is supported by Iran, has led Al Nusra leaders to say that, following the fall of the Assad regime, Hezbollah's destruction will be the next priority. Contemplating a possible Al Nusra takeover in Syria and a widening of the war into Lebanon and possibly Iran, the US is focusing on how its increasingly likely intervention could shape Syria’s highly contentious future.</p>
<p><a href="http://communities.deakin.edu.au/deakin-speaking/node/478" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://communities.deakin.edu.au/deakin-speaking/node/478#commentsEconomics and Public PolicyBarack ObamaCHEMICAL WEAPONSSyriaSYRIA PROTESTSSYRIA UPRISINGWed, 01 May 2013 03:38:43 +0000Damien Kingsbury478 at http://communities.deakin.edu.au/deakin-speakingChemical warfare could force US to intervene in Syriahttp://communities.deakin.edu.au/deakin-speaking/node/457
<p>The civil war in Syria looks to be entering a new and potentially more dangerous phase, with the alleged use of chemical weapons both escalating the conflict and making foreign intervention more likely. During his visit to Israel, US President Barack Obama said confirmation that chemical weapons had been used in Syria would be a "game changer".</p>
<p>Dozens of people have been reportedly killed in the city of Aleppo following what is believed to have been a gas attack. When news of the attack first broke, the Syrian government immediately blamed Syrian rebels for the use of chemical weapons. The rebels quickly denied responsibility, saying they had no access to such weapons and had no suitable weapons delivery systems. Obama said he was sceptical of the Syrian government's claim that the chemical weapons had been used by the rebels.</p>
<p>UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for an investigation into the use of the gas as a weapon in Syria. Obama said: "When you start seeing weapons that can cause potential devastation and mass casualties and you let that genie out of the bottle, then you are looking at potentially even more horrific scenes than we've already seen in Syria."</p>
<p>Obama is now under increasing domestic pressure from both sides of US politics to intervene in the Syrian conflict. He has so far avoided intervention in the hope the war would be resolved through negotiation; however, he said the use of chemical weapons could trigger intervention.</p>
<p>The UK has already started to supply gas masks to Syria’s rebel fighters, along with other humanitarian aid.</p>
<p>If the US intervenes, it is expected to be under the rubric of the "Responsibility to Protect" policy (R2P). Under R2P, states have a responsibility to intervene in domestic conflicts when a government cannot protect its people from, or engages in, war crimes, crimes against humanity or other mass human rights abuses. There are several levels of invoking R2P, only the last of which is military intervention. Ordinarily, R2P requires the approval of the UN Security Council. However, Russia and China have both made clear they will not allow the Security Council to invoke R2P on this issue.</p>
<p>Obama is highly unlikely to opt for unilateral on-ground military intervention, given the US is still assessing the cost of being bogged down in Iraq and then Afghanistan. However, there is some possibility he could authorise selective air strikes against chemical weapons sights and related targets, or reach agreement with other NATO states to allow such strikes.</p>
<p>This would probably be less than NATO's barrage of air strikes in Kosovo in 1999, which ended Serbian occupation, and probably less than the air support for anti-Muammar Gaddafi forces in Libya in 2011. In particular, the US would be particularly concerned not to provoke Russia into also intervening, thus turning the Syrian civil war into a war by proxy between major powers.</p>
<p>The US is also concerned to eliminate chemical weapons from a post-Bashar al-Assad strategic equation. It fears if the Assad regime falls, weapons could fall into the hands of the radical Islamist groups that are carrying much of the anti-Assad effort. This, too, may prompt the use of air strikes.</p>
<p>Along with other Western states, the US wants to see an end to the Syrian conflict. But few want to see the rise of a militant Islamist state, especially one that demonstrably has access to "weapons of mass destruction".</p>
<p><a href="http://communities.deakin.edu.au/deakin-speaking/node/457" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://communities.deakin.edu.au/deakin-speaking/node/457#commentsEconomics and Public PolicyBarack ObamaBASHAR AL-ASSADCHEMICAL WEAPONSNATOSyriaFri, 22 Mar 2013 05:18:43 +0000Damien Kingsbury457 at http://communities.deakin.edu.au/deakin-speakingReddit and Political Figures Onlinehttp://communities.deakin.edu.au/deakin-speaking/node/372
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt">&nbsp;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Verdana&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 9pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin">&lsquo;Hey everybody - this is barack&rsquo;, wrote US President Barack Obama on the social networking space <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Reddit</i>. &lsquo;Just finished a great rally in Charlottesville, and am looking forward to your questions&rsquo;.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><a href="http://communities.deakin.edu.au/deakin-speaking/node/372" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://communities.deakin.edu.au/deakin-speaking/node/372#commentsCommunityBarack Obamaoccupy melbourneRedditsocial mediaFri, 21 Sep 2012 07:25:33 +0000Perri372 at http://communities.deakin.edu.au/deakin-speaking